


The Move

by Guede



Series: Office Romance [2]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, Alternate Universe - Romantic Comedy, Apologies, Crack Treated Seriously, Eavesdropping, Established Relationship, House Hunting, Humor, Idiots in Love, Jealousy, Love Confessions, M/M, Miscommunication, Obsessive Behavior, Public Display of Affection, Relationship Issues, Romantic Face Punching, Trolling, Voyeurism, Workplace Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-21 05:39:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14909387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: David Villa does not need harebrained schemes to get what he wants (but they help).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to Livejournal in 2010; reposting in honor of the World Cup.

David bolted upright in bed. He stared around the dimly-lit room, gasping for breath and grabbing at his hair. The room looked okay. He looked—he felt at his head more carefully, then looked down—okay, he was fine too. Then he heard something to his left and stiffened up.

When he turned that way, he just caught Raúl resettling himself under the blankets. The other man wasn’t more than a vaguely-shaped lump with some tufts of hair sticking out of the top, maybe a sliver of forehead. It was all real peaceful and quiet, and David stared at Raúl for a while without quite knowing why. Finally he gave himself a shake, told himself to stop being weird and started to work his way back under the sheets.

Raúl stirred, then poked his furrowed brow out of the blankets. He fluttered absurdly long lashes a few times before he managed to focus on David, and then his furrows got even deeper. “David?” he mumbled.

“What?” David said, and promptly grimaced. “I mean—”

But Raúl just blinked again, looking at David without any sign of irritation or resignation or really, anything except a kind of fuzzy daze. Then something clicked and Raúl nodded, acknowledging the click. He put his head down, closed his eyes and snuggled his head back into the dent in the pillow. “Hmmm, okay.”

Like that explained anything to David, who was—who was sternly telling himself that Raúl was sleepy and also he was not getting annoyed at the fact that Raúl looked…well, adorable. Raúl’s hair was a rumpled, loopy mess and his nose was sticking into the blankets, and for once the planes of his face weren’t scrunched up in exasperated wrinkles, and it was all very cute. He looked better just lying there than David did after dropping half a paycheck at a salon.

Raúl’s eyes were still closed. “David. What?”

“Nothing! Nothing. Why would you think it’s something? Did I do anything?” David yelped, starting. He put out his hand to emphasize his point, then yanked it back to grab at his hair. “Goddamn it. I mean, go back to sleep.”

A small dip appeared between Raúl’s eyebrows. Then he sighed and rolled his head, like he was turning the other way, all martyr-like, and for a moment David wanted to hit the both of them.

The moment passed and David came to his senses, and just wanted to hit himself. He bit back a nasty, stupid comment and flopped down on his back, wondering once again how he’d ever thought he wasn’t going to screw—Raúl was leaning over him, with a look like the man wasn’t _putting up_ with this and it was kind of terrifying. Usually Raúl only gave that look to misbehaving talent, and maybe David was a screw-up at just waking up next to his boyfriend but he wasn’t _that_ fucking bad.

He was getting kissed. He needed a moment, while Raúl ignored his passiveness and had fun with every part of the inside of David’s mouth plus slid one hand into David’s hair. It was a little annoying how when David did that, he usually snagged a hair and it hurt, but when Raúl did it, it felt really good. Soothing and warm, and maybe a little inviting too. Or maybe that was the part where Raúl moved the rest of himself over, draping himself on top like warm silk, and pushed his hand down David’s front. David grabbed Raúl’s shoulders instinctively, then finally got with it and kissed back. Grabbed Raúl’s ass while he was at it, and rolled them over.

Maybe fifteen minutes later, Raúl was dozing again but curled up and sort of over David, his face stuffed into the curve of David’s neck while his legs were trying to persuade David’s knees that it was in their best interest to be crushed. To be honest, the legs were winning.

“David?” Raúl murmured breathily. His nose was just bumping David’s earlobe.

“Huh?” David leaned his head against Raúl’s shoulder. The other man smelled good, fresh but not in a sharp way. Like sun-dried laundry. And while David wasn’t really sleepy, he couldn’t work up the energy to do much besides fiddle with Raúl’s insanely soft hair, which naturally curled around his finger like it wanted him too.

Raúl nuzzled David’s neck. “Good thing you’re off today.”

“Yeah, good—oh _fuck_! I’m not! I’m not off!” For the second time, David bolted upright in bed.

* * *

“I’m sorry,” Raúl said for the thirtieth time—since they’d got in the car. And he meant it, but at this point he was beginning to wonder why he was bothering to say it, since it didn’t seem to be sinking into David’s skull. “I really am. But you didn’t mention you had a morning meeting. You just said you set your phone to go off if you needed to do anything.”

“I did! And it didn’t!” The way David yanked his mobile out, Raúl felt completely justified in dropping back a step to avoid having it thrown at him. But then David rounded on him, eyes blazing, waving the mobile screen in Raúl’s face. “Because it was in the kitchen! With our clothes!”

Raúl couldn’t really pay attention to David’s rage the way he probably should have been doing, mostly because David had misbuttoned his shirt and Raúl was having a hard time not looking at the weird way the shirt-front was all bunched up. Well, that and as sorry as he was, he was not responsible for keeping David on schedule and he hadn’t heard David objecting to morning sex. For that matter, he hadn’t been the one pushing for it after the first minute or so. “David. Listen. You’re only about five minutes late and if it’s a real problem, I’m willing to go in with you and say that it was my fault—”

“Oh, right, that’s gonna work. So then they’ll ask why it’s your fault, and you’ll say because your bedhead is so fucking sexy, and I’ll look like a moron who can’t control himself!” David snapped.

A cough to Raúl’s right interrupted them and saved David from having Raúl forcibly give the man the smack to the head he badly needed. Silva blinked wide, not really embarrassed eyes at them, then shoved a stack of files in David’s hands. “Hey, glad to see you finally,” he said. “Look, the talent was late anyway so the meeting hasn’t even started yet. Get up there quick and it should be cool. I’ve gotta go call off Joaquín now.”

David had tried to turn on Silva, but the mass of files threw off his balance so he just teetered in place; Raúl spent a second admiring how effective that tactic was. His mouth opened and shut a few times, and Raúl almost thought that Silva had managed to shock the man out of it. But then David’s brows drew down. “Joaquín? What the fuck does Joaquín have to do with it?”

“Well, you weren’t here and you need to make that meeting if we’re gonna keep getting work, so _somebody_ had to get you,” Silva said, not even looking up at David. He was dialing his mobile instead.

“Joaquín doesn’t know where Raúl lives,” David spat out.

Silva stopped dialing and looked up. This time his eyes were wide out of genuine surprise. “Holy mother of God, you’re spending the night at his place now?” He turned around. “Santi! Santi, you jerk, guess who doesn’t have to show the new guy around now?”

“I’ll…so I…hope you have a nice meeting,” Raúl muttered, edging away. He glanced behind himself, then turned around and headed for the elevator.

When he heard footsteps coming after him, he almost made a run for it. Then he suppressed a sigh, set his shoulders, and turned back. David pulled up just short of slamming into Raúl, then cursed as he started to lose a file. His hair was a mess, spikes sticking up at different lengths and angles, and his shirt was still misbuttoned. Raúl gave in and grabbed half the files. That made David freeze in place and Raúl got a couple seconds to push his free hand past the remaining files to get at those buttons.

“Wait. Well, you are waiting, fuck…” David did that odd wincing eyeroll where he was too busy calling himself stupid to think about what he was doing. Then he gave himself a shake and looked Raúl desperately in the eye. “Sorry I yelled. It wasn’t really—I should’ve remembered. I’m just—you know.”

“David, just go to your meeting.” Beyond David’s shoulder, Raúl could see more of the staff popping out of their offices to come and gawk. Silva was gesturing furiously to some of them, with the occasional thumb at Raúl. Raúl still thought he had the more dysfunctional staff, but David’s people were pretty up there too. “I don’t want to make you more late.”

“I’m just sorry,” David said again. “And sorry about them, too. I promise Joaquín will _never_ know your address.”

Raúl thought he was going to sigh, but instead he ended up laughing. He popped the files back into David’s stack, then looked up. Oddly enough, he did feel better—but David still looked like he was about to collapse into a nervous fit. “It’s fine. Anyway, my lease is expiring in two months so that’s probably not going to be a problem. Actually, I should start looking for a new place…”

Unconvinced, David just twitched. For a moment Raúl debated if the risk of making the man more twitchy…and then he just shrugged it off and leaned forward to peck David on the lips. Maybe it’d make things worse, maybe it wouldn’t, but one thing Raúl had learned for sure was that doing nothing was guaranteed to drive David up the wall as the man tried to figure that out.

Thankfully, David didn’t flip out. He held still for the kiss, then seemed to relax as Raúl stepped away. Raúl said he was going again and David mumbled some kind of reply, which was good enough for the moment. So Raúl got out of there while Silva was still just explaining and not trying to actively orchestrate.

* * *

The meeting went…okay. Silva had had the bright idea of pinning a bullet-point summary to the top of the stack he’d given David, and David spent the elevator ride up desperately reading it, only to have the talent’s agent be such an ass that they never got past bullet-point two. They rescheduled to cover the rest and David made sure to specify an afternoon meeting, because damned if he was going to…to…okay, fine, next time he probably was going to roll over and fuck a lazy, cuddly, rumpled Raúl. The man just looked too good like that.

David kicked in his office door and heaved the papers onto his desk. He dropped his hands on either side, then dropped his head and breathed. His back was killing him. Just what the hell were all the papers anyway? It was just a pitch meeting and they shouldn’t be at the contracting stage yet.

He started to leaf through the pile, only to jump and knock the papers over. Then he whipped around.

“You can put the stapler down,” Mata sighed. He was standing in the doorway with a slightly taller man, who was doing the unimpressed look while Mata silently but dramatically prayed to the ceiling for strength. Then Mata gave himself a shake and pointed to the other man. “Pablo, David Villa. Guaje, this is Pablo Hernández Domínguez. He’s the new guy who’s gonna help with the webisode idea.”

Webisode…what? Oh, right, that new project Figo had given David. At the time David had been stupid happy about that, to the point where he hadn’t even cared about Figo telling him to stop harassing Raúl where the interns could see, but right now he kind of hated it. Well, not really. Mostly he just wanted his staff to give him a fucking moment to pull himself together and not look stupid. “Oh. Right. Hi. Nice to meet you…Pablo! Pablo.”

Pablo ambled over and shook the hand David stuck out. He didn’t seem annoyed at David almost failing to remember his name, but then, he didn’t seem that interested period. “Hi. I’m looking forward to the project.”

“Yeah, I’m glad. It’s an experiment for us and if it works out…maybe we’ll do more.” David scrubbed at his forehead as a way to covertly glance at his desk, but nope, that file wasn’t in sight. “So…have you processed in yet?”

“No,” Pablo said. “They said I should wait till I saw you.”

“Oh. Well, you can get started now. Just ask Mata or any of the others if you’ve got questions. When you’re done let Silva know, and he’ll set up a first meeting for us to talk,” David replied, trying not to sag in relief.

The other man blinked, then nodded and turned around to amble back to Mata. They had a few words and then Mata pointed for Pablo to go somewhere. Pablo did and Mata turned around with a dramatic head-roll. “And you wonder why we all end up disrespectful little shits. You know what I had to tell him when he showed up fifteen minutes early and you came in fifteen minutes late?”

“No, and I don’t care so long as you didn’t bring Raúl into it. Where are we on the other things?” David asked. He spun around and started sifting through his inbox. A couple express mail packages were already in and were promisingly bulky, so he grabbed one and pulled on the tear-strip. Which broke before it was halfway across. It was going to be that kind of day.

Mata sighed and handed David a pair of scissors. “Didn’t have to do that when you bring Raúl to the office and flip out at him. Poor guy, he’s never going to fuck you in the morning again.”

The scissors slipped but got stuck in the cardboard instead of David’s hand. Just for safety’s sake, he dropped the whole thing. Then he bit back some swears and picked it up again, and cut the damn top off. “It’s none of your business and that’s not how it went anyway—”

“Holy fuck!” Mata yelped. “So you’re the one doing the fucking? Holy fuck, Joaquín’s gonna eat his words and also finish prepping the pilot, plus Silva’s got the scripts for next week lined up and I’m all good with the ads and Figo has another proposal for you.”

The phone rang.

Mata beamed like he’d just had his birthday come early. “That’s probably Figo. He said to call him when you showed up, and I think Silva messaged him while you were in the meeting.”

“If I didn’t need you all, I’d kill you,” David finally said, jabbing the scissors at Mata.

“Now there’s your usual psychotic spirit. Keep it up and I’ll round up stuff for a rundown before lunch!” And with that, Mata bounded out the door.

David opened his mouth and the phone rang again, insistently, like Figo was possessing it with his irritatingly interfering mind. After a moment’s gritting teeth, David finally picked it up. Figo thanked him for showing up and told him to come up in half an hour, David said okay, and Figo said bye. And David put down the phone.

Just in case, David shut the door to his office. Then he went back to his desk and returned to making sense of his work-day.

* * *

“Raúl!” Fernando said, looking shocked. “I didn’t know you were coming in today!”

Behind Fernando, Iker was making apologetic faces. Then Iker pointed to a hangdog Albiol and made strangling motions, and Raúl redirected his attention to Fernando. He took in Fernando’s slightly strained smile, conspicuous cup of steaming coffee, and perfect timing. “Mori, I wasn’t but I ended up driving David over and figured I might as well check on a few things while I was at it.”

Fernando flinched a little behind his smile. “Really. I never figured Villa for the type to beg.”

“Good morning, Mori,” Raúl pronounced sternly. Then he pivoted on his heel and headed for…on second thought, he wasn’t going to go to his office. He was going to see Pep.

Who, when Raúl walked in, was busy windmilling his arms while stomping around his desk. It took a moment for Raúl to figure out that Pep had the speakerphone on and was actually having a conversation with someone. Raúl shrugged and pulled the door quietly shut behind him, then waited for Pep to wrap up.

Pep did so by stabbing his finger at the phone console, then flopping back into his chair with a gusty sigh. The chair spun slowly around from the force of it, and when Pep was facing Raúl again, he started and nearly fell out of the chair.

“Are you all right?” Raúl asked, coming forward.

“I’m fine! Fine.” Pep’s eyes were still a bit wide but he seemed to have a reasonably good grip on his desk. “Just a problem with Luís, but nothing you need to worry about. Damn man won’t let me expense any more phones.”

Raúl couldn’t help glancing at the deskphone. It seemed all right. Maybe some of the buttons were a bit smushed. 

“Mobiles,” Pep clarified. He hunched a little, rubbing at his left eye. Then he avoided Raúl’s gaze as he pulled out a bottle of water and swigged at it. “Apparently I break a lot of them. But anyway, what can I do for you?”

“I was just wondering something,” Raúl started slowly. Then he gave up on trying to word it tactfully and looked Pep in the eye. “Why did we hire Mori back?”

Gradually Pep’s face rearranged itself into a solemn expression. He put down his bottle and folded his hands together on the desk, watching Raúl. “Because he still has enormous popularity in this country and he’s a good fit for our line-up. His guest appearances on _El Toro_ sent the ratings through the roof.”

Raúl reluctantly nodded. That wasn’t one of his shows but he had heard about the numbers, and it was an anchor for their brand. He might be frustrated but if he was honest, he couldn’t have done differently if he’d been in Luís’ or Pep’s position. “All right.”

“Also he’s one of the few big stars who’s willing to try out new media and who understands that he can’t be asking for giant paychecks before we’re even sure it’ll work out,” Pep added, relaxing. “Luís thinks he’ll be great for the webisode initiative.”

“The webisodes?” Raúl repeated. “Aren’t those going to David?”

Pep blinked. Frowned. Stared hard enough at Raúl to melt iron. “Villa’s in charge of the webisodes? I…didn’t know that. Excuse me, I have to call Luís back.”

Then Pep transferred that look of his to the phone. Raúl got up and got out of the office before the flailing could start again. He stood at the door for a moment, wondering whether it was too late to go down to David’s floor. Then he happened to glance to the side and Fernando was standing right there.

“Sorry! Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Fernando said, reaching out. When Raúl froze, Fernando froze as well. Then he withdrew his hand more slowly. He shook his head, then looked away with a rueful, faintly hurt smile on his face. “And I’m sorry about earlier. I said I’d be reasonable about this and that wasn’t reasonable.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Raúl said after a pause. He absently glanced towards Pep’s office, which was beginning to emanate thumps and crashes. Then he sighed and turned away from the other man.

“Wait.” Fernando didn’t move, but his voice was so desperate that Raúl reluctantly stopped. He looked grateful for that, nervously pushing the hair back from his face. “No. I’m sorry. I know it’s over and I’m not going to try and get in the way. I’d just—we were friends too. I’d like to try to be professionals about it, at least.”

Raúl sneaked a look to the side and confirmed his suspicions that everyone was watching. It was funny that he didn’t care about kissing David goodbye for the day in public, but this kind of attention made him heartily dislike Fernando. But that was unfair, and the other man was right. “I…would appreciate that too.”

“All right,” Fernando said quietly.

They looked at each other for a few seconds. It still felt uncomfortable but in the end, Raúl decided it was something he could tolerate. He finally muttered that he needed to see Iker and Fernando wished him a good day, and that was it. Hopefully.

* * *

Silva shoved up his binder like a shield. “It wasn’t my fault!”

“No, it’s fucking Figo,” David threw out as he stormed past. He went into his office, yanking the door shut as he went.

The door banged into the frame, then banged out of it. A moment later Silva banged in courtesy of the binder, which damn near broke David’s spare chair as the other man chased David. “What? What happened? Was it the—”

“Fernando Morientes is the fucking star of our fucking webisodes!” David kicked his desk, then cursed and grabbed up his foot. He hopped a few times before falling against his desk, so now his hip hurt as well. It made him want to kick the damn piece of furniture again.

Instead David awkwardly got himself into his desk chair. He slumped there, then reared back and hit his head against the chair. It didn’t really help his mood but it did make him too dizzy to go do something stupid.

“No kidding,” Silva finally said. “Um. Well, he is really good at emoting. And he’s got nice hair. I’m sure that’ll transfer well to the…what do we call the Internet? The really small screen?”

David tilted his head just enough to look at Silva.

“Well, look, since you came back instead of me getting a call from Figo that he needed somebody to pry you off him, I’m guessing we can’t do anything about it. So we gotta work with it. We can do that. It’s still going to be an awesome show.” Silva started to get a faraway look in his eyes. “You know, Pablo and I were talking and he told me about this stuff he can…oh, look, at least Raúl didn’t get it. It’s not like Mori’s going to try and seduce _you_.”

“Wait, Mori’s trying to seduce Raúl?” David sat up straight. “What did you hear? I thought that asshole said he’d given up!”

* * *

The man standing at the door looked enough like Villa from behind—same height, same hair—that Fernando slowed his steps. But then the man turned around and he didn’t have a face that was asking to get its teeth knocked out of it. “I think he’s busy,” he said. Fernando must have looked surprised because the man went on a bit. “You want to see David Villa, right? This is his office.”

“I don’t know if I _want_ to see him. But if there’s a line, I guess I have to be in it.” Damn Figo and his flawless logic and even more flawlessly vague threats of blackmail, Fernando thought. He glanced around the room, sighed at the curious-to-hostile looks he was getting, and then looked at the other man again. “So you’re waiting for him too?”

“No, I’m waiting for Silva, but he’s in there too.” The man shrugged. He might have Villa’s spikes, but he definitely didn’t have Villa’s air of seething rage; instead his hooded eyes gave him the same resigned air as a tired hound. It was a little weird, to be honest. The hair and the face just didn’t go together. “Pablo. It’s my first day.”

Fernando nodded. “Fernando.”

Pablo looked slightly more interested. “So are you just going to wait after me? Not pull rank and cut ahead?”

After a moment, Fernando realized what else was weird about the man: he should’ve recognized Fernando but up till just now he hadn’t acted like it. “Er…no.”

“Okay,” Pablo shrugged. He scruffed at his hair, then tugged at his collar. “I guess if you say so.”

“Well, yes. It’d be rude if I said otherwise,” Fernando said after a moment, puzzled.

Pablo shrugged again, not even looking Fernando’s way. “Yeah, I guess. Also it’s probably gonna freak him out if you surprise him like that, but hey, whatever you want to do.”

That…well, all right, maybe the rumor mill did work that fast around here, but honestly. Couldn’t Villa even keep his subordinates in line? If Fernando was going to be working with this kind of passive-aggressive bullshit, he wasn’t going to stand around and wait. He grabbed the knob and turned it.

* * *

“I didn’t hear anything,” Silva said. “What? Did you hear something?”

“No. No, aside from Morientes getting a job here again on my fucking project, which means he gets to be around all the time.” David put his elbows down on the desk and tipped his face into his hands. He started to massage his temples. “I’ll be damned if I have him and Raúl running into each other, and now I can’t have Raúl down here. And it’s not like we get to see much of each other at work anyway, and with the new schedule I’m not going to have time to drive to his place.”

Silva made sympathetic encouraging noises. “So have him come to yours. He’s got a pretty light schedule till his serial gets greenlighted.”

“Yeah, but remember where I live? It’s too fucking far for him—too fucking far for me. Why do you think I’ve been going to his place?” David muttered. “I need a new place. My lease is up in a month and a half and my landlord’s a son of a bitch into the bargain.”

“Well, maybe you and Raúl can meet up at the realtor’s,” Silva said. “Didn’t he say he needed a new place too?”

David started to look up, but just then Morientes strolled into the office. He was smiling and his hair was perfectly tousled and his clothes looked like a men’s fashion magazine editor had picked them out for him. “Hello, David,” Morientes said. “I was in and I thought I’d just drop in to talk about the webisodes.”

“I just heard about it. Haven’t gotten all the docs yet.” For good measure, David shuffled around the files on his desk. Off to the side, Silva was mumbling something about staying calm but David didn’t need that; he knew full well that he couldn’t punch Morientes at work without getting Figo in his face again, and he was pretty sure this crap was from the _last_ time he’d punched Morientes. “I don’t know what’s there to say but what do you want?”

Morientes didn’t say anything for long enough that he made David look lame with the shuffling papers. David gritted his teeth, dropped them, and looked up.

“Are you going to be a bastard about this?” Morientes asked, in all seriousness. He’d hooked his thumbs through his belt-loops and was leaning back like he couldn’t quite see David from his overly-superior height. “Because I promised Raúl he wouldn’t get any more trouble. He’s stressed enough as it is.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not like I’m going to dump him on our anniversary,” David snapped.

Silva put up a hand. “Uh, guys?”

For one second Morientes was stiff and expressionless. Then he snorted, relaxing into a big, toothy, nasty grin. “I’ll be amazed if you actually _get_ to an anniversary, with the way you treat him.”

“Guys?”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means I never yelled at him for making me late with sex. I sat back and enjoyed it. And he enjoyed it a hell of a lot too. It probably helps when the other person isn’t foaming at the mouth every ten seconds— _Villa get off_ —shit, you little _shit_ —”

“Guys! No! Don’t—don’t do this! Fuck, help! _Heeeeelp_! Somebody tall! I need somebody tall! I’m too small to do this!”

* * *

Raúl stuffed the bag of frozen peas under his arm and then got out a frozen pizza. It was too big and awkwardly shaped to stick under his other arm, so he just used his elbow to shut the freezer door as he turned around. “No, I agree, he _was_ being an ass. I’m just saying that maybe you should let him dig his own grave.”

“Put that back.” Squinting through his black eye, David gingerly made his way over to sneer at the frozen pizza. Then he brusquely pushed by Raúl to get the fridge open. He started poking around the shelves, fiddling in a bag of radishes. “If we’ve got time to cook a decent meal, we’re gonna have one. You eat like a starving arts student.”

It was on the tip of Raúl’s tongue to point out that one, he at least knew how to bake potatoes without having them explode, and two, they had forty-five minutes to make and eat lunch. But, looking down at David’s awry spikes, Raúl found himself smiling instead. Wryly, but still smiling. “It’s a gourmet pizza. Truffle oil and Serrano ham.”

David grunted and kept rummaging around, but he was starting to slow. Finally he managed to knock his hand into something and that got him to fall back, hissing and nursing his sore fingers. He glanced blankly at the frozen peas, then sighed and took the packet from Raúl. He applied it to his hand, then to his eye. Then his hand. “Where the hell do you get that kind of frozen pizza? Isn’t it the point of pizza to be cheap filler?”

The smile twitched off Raúl’s face. He stood there a moment, then shrugged and went over to the trashcan, taking off the pizza’s wrap as he went. “Well, I like this brand. I’m going to have it.”

The wrap in the trash, Raúl took one step away. Then he realized he hadn’t read the instructions and those were on the wrap. He went back, dug that out and looked, and then got the pizza in the oven with his clean hand. After shutting the oven door, Raúl turned to go wash his hands and found David staring at him with that look of forlorn comprehension, like a kid who’d cleverly caught his parents out at Christmas and just realized he’d killed Santa all by himself.

“He’s just—I mean, I have to work with him, and I can do that but he was such a fucking son of a bitch about it,” David muttered, looking down at the floor. He tried to pull at his hair without realizing he had a bag of frozen peas in that hand, bonked his head and looked so utterly disgusted with himself that Raúl couldn’t laugh. “He started talking about how good the sex was! Did you know he could be that much of a shit?”

Raúl was of two minds as to how to respond. In the end he just washed his hands, because the frozen cheese bits on his fingers were getting annoying. And something about the way he could work the soapsuds between his fingers and then over his hands was very soothing, and helped him remember that his wanting to hurt Fernando wasn’t productive either. “Yes. When he’s upset. And I’m not condoning how he’s behaving, but he’s upset and he has a good reason to be.”

“Yeah, because he’s a fucking moron and lost out on you.” David sneaked a look at Raúl, then edged a bit nearer. The frozen peas were beginning to drip water on his feet and he absently used his toes to scrape that off before he took another step. “I can’t believe I have to work with him.”

“I know. I don’t know what Luís was thinking. I mean, I can understand the business side but if the chemistry’s not there, it’s not there and that’s not good for business either,” Raúl said. He wasn’t looking at David right then because he was trying to find a dishtowel. When he did look, he had to bite back a laugh at David’s expression. “I didn’t mean like that.”

A small, reluctant smile started to pull at David’s lips. “Yeah, I know. But you know, even that would be easier.”

“Well, maybe something will work out.” Raúl tossed the towel back on the counter, then reached out and ran his hand through David’s hair. “I actually went to go ask Pep about why they matched you two up, and he didn’t even know you were. He said he’d talk to Luís about it.”

Oddly enough, David didn’t seem happy to hear that. Instead he just stared at Raúl for a few seconds, like he wasn’t sure he’d heard that right. Then he pressed his lips together and looked off to the side. He scratched at the back of his neck with his good hand before propping his fist against his hip. “Oh, great. Figo already made it pretty fucking clear he thought I was being a whiny brat about this. Now he’s gonna think I can’t take care of my own shit.”

“Why would he…David, I didn’t ask for you. I wasn’t trying to do that,” Raúl said, a touch exasperated. He could see David’s point, but at the same time it was starting to get a little annoying that David couldn’t see any upside. Ever. “I asked because I had my own run-in with Mori this morning. Look, if you’d wanted me to intervene for you, I’d be happy to but I’d also ask you first.”

“Well, I don’t want you to get involved,” David snapped. “It’s not your project.”

After a moment, Raúl shrugged and told himself not to ruin lunch. They still had five minutes on the pizza. “Fine.”

“Fine.” David turned away. He grabbed a chair and pulled it out, and then dropped into it so he wasn’t facing Raúl. Then he got up and went back to the fridge. “I don’t want pizza.”

“Fine,” Raúl muttered.

* * *

Once he’d had time to cool down, Fernando did regret the whole incident, including his role in it. So much for being the better man—he hadn’t meant to insult Raúl, but he wasn’t looking forward to the version of the story that got to the other man. And much as he wanted to, he didn’t think that tracking Raúl down and giving his side was the best idea. At least not for a few days. Right now Raúl would probably rather jump out a window than talk to him.

Somebody knocked on the door and Fernando closed his eyes. Then he opened them and put his hands behind himself, trying to get up. A surprising number of aches started up: it hadn’t been much of a scuffle before they’d been dragged apart, but apparently Villa had gotten in a few good shots. Fernando’s ribs in particular felt like they’d been…actually, they probably were the perfect height for that rabid little shit. And to believe Fernando had once liked him.

Whoever it was knocked again, then opened the door before Fernando could do more than open his mouth. Pablo walked in, stopped to take in Fernando lying on the conference table, and then scratched his cheek. “You having a meeting?”

“Are you?” Fernando asked under his breath. It was pretty clear the other man was by himself. Then Fernando noticed the shiner on Pablo’s cheek. He thought hard, grimaced and made himself sit up. “Listen, I’m sorry about that.”

“Huh?” Then a bit of understanding stirred in Pablo’s eyes. Didn’t really wake them up anyway. He fingered the bruise as he wandered over to the table, still looking Fernando over. “Oh, that was Villa. You got Silva and…uh, I think his name’s Albelda.”

Fernando grimaced harder. Yet another apology he wasn’t looking forward to making. Not that Albelda didn’t deserve it, but he’d probably want a chance to smack Fernando back instead of a sorry. Then Fernando frowned. Pablo had taken out a little notebook and was scribbling in it while occasionally looking up to peer at Fernando. “Did you…want something?” Fernando asked.

“Look forward for a sec.” Pablo held up his pen and closed one eye, trying to line it up with something. He apparently got it and wrote it down. Then he looked up and frowned when he saw Fernando hadn’t done as he said. “Just a sec?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m helping with the special effects on the webisode and this way we only have to have you in the motion-capture suit for one hour instead of two,” Pablo said. He tapped his pen against his notepad’s metal spine. “Then again, some people really get into the lycra.”

It’d been a while since Fernando had looked at the script, but he didn’t remember anything that’d need that. “I’m not into lycra. And I think you’re trying to prank me to kiss up to your boss.”

Maybe Pablo’s nostrils flared a little. Otherwise he was just staring at Fernando with that tired, blasé look again. “It’s my first day and my boss whacked an elbow into my head. I’m not really into that.”

They stared at each other. If Pablo was lying, he seemed amazingly uninterested in whether or not Fernando believed him. And suddenly Fernando felt like an ass again. “Sorry. I…I didn’t know you were on the webisodes too. Or that we were doing big special effects. I thought the budget was pretty tight.”

“It is. That’s why we’re gonna animate you turning into a bloodsucking werewolf instead of trying to do it for real,” Pablo said. He blinked. The rest of his face stayed the same. “I’m joking.”

“Right,” Fernando finally said. He got off the table. “Listen, I’ve actually got to be somewhere, but Silva should get my schedule in a couple days. Just have him get you an appointment.”

Pablo sighed. “The last time I tried that, I got an elbow to the head. Is that gonna happen a lot? Because I’m not a miracle-worker. You break your face and I can’t guarantee I can fix it. For the webisodes.”

“No. No, it’s not going to happen a lot, and you don’t need to worry about my face, though the concern is touching. Just let your boss know that I’ll play ball even if he can’t,” Fernando snapped, stalking out.

* * *

Cazorla and Silva high-fived, while David just tried to figure out why his coffee had stopped working. He swirled his current mouthful around, then swallowed it and waited. No buzz. Well, at least they had nearly wrapped for the day, and all he had to worry about staying awake for was the ride home. “Okay, so why do we have this love triangle where two of the people are actually the same—what?”

The door cracked open and Iker stuck in his head. “Sorry, it’s just that the edits for the crossover are in.”

“Finally,” Cazorla said, spinning his chair around. He grabbed the sheaf Iker held out and started leafing through it. Then he stopped, his eyes wide. “But we can’t kill her! She’s the only one who has good hair! It’ll skew cast dynamics!”

Iker muttered something noncommittal while rubbing his hand over his own hair and not looking at David. “Oh, and David…Raúl wanted you to know that he already went home so not to wait for him.”

“He went home?” David put down his cup. “He took my fucking car?”

“No, he took a taxi,” Iker said, eyes snapping to David. “He left your stupid car, so stop being an ass.”

With that, Iker shut the door and Silva and Cazorla weren’t nose-deep in the crossover like they should have been, but were staring hard at David. Like they knew anything. Sometimes David wished mass media could work more like a cowboy flick, where you only needed one guy to take care of things, and all the other people just got out of the way.

“What’d you do?” Cazorla said.

“Fuck that, what did you _say_?” Silva butted in. He threw one arm dramatically over his face. “Was it the fight with Morientes? Please tell me it wasn’t the fight with Morientes.”

David grabbed his phone off his desk and pushed his chair away so he could use his body to shield the mobile’s screen from the others. He checked for recent messages: no voicemail, bunch of work emails…one text from Raúl. Something in his chest that he didn’t even know had been clenched up cut loose and he breathed hard. Then he swallowed just as hard and opened the message.

“It was! Oh, my God.” Thump as Silva probably draped himself woefully over his chair-arm, like he was prone to do when bitching David out. “Okay, so not only do you get in deeper shit with Figo and give our new geek a bad impression—”

“Who?” The text…said Raúl didn’t want to bother David during work so he was going home early, and to call if it turned out David was coming over later. David looked at it a moment longer, then thumbed his phone to save the message. Then he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. After a moment, he remembered he was in a conversation. “Oh, Pablo? How did I give him a bad impression? I thought HR warns the newbies that this isn’t a nursery. It’s a stressful profession.”

“Yeah, it is, and yeah, they do, but that doesn’t cover getting assaulted by your boss,” Cazorla said. When David looked up, the other man helpfully jerked his elbow around in the air. “Got him right in the head.”

Silva lifted himself up long enough to glower at David. “Also, let him know you’ve got serious personal issues with Morientes and your boyfriend, with whom you’re currently _fighting_ over Morientes who he dumped _way_ way hard in front of everybody so he could make out with you instead. Man, can’t you show a little gratitude? _We_ sure did.”

“Hey, I—I do.” David hooked his chin at Silva’s incredulous look, then tossed his phone back on the desk. He gave his black eye a rub. “And catcalls and Kama Sutra quotes aren’t fucking gratitude. Look, I had a fight with Morientes. I didn’t have one with Raúl. Now can we finish up work so I can go fucking ho—”

“You just read something on your phone,” Silva suddenly said. He stretched forward and peered hard at David, then flopped back with a triumphant air. “You totally did! And I bet it was Raúl. ‘cause I bet he sent a text and then realized you were gonna be a moron and not check it in time, and sent Iker down to talk to you. Because you’re fighting but Raúl’s the only one of you smart enough to get that, and he has to do stuff like make Iker be the go-between to get it through your dense skull.”

“Why don’t I ever fire you?” David finally asked.

Both Silva and Cazorla rolled their eyes. Then Silva got up the stack of files from his lap and started leafing through them. “Listen, Guaje, if he said you can call if you want, he means he’s really annoyed and you’d better call to say sorry or at least say you’re gonna talk it out. If you call and you just wanna know if you can come over, he’s going to hang up on you. So don’t. And Ibrahimović wants to know if he can borrow Flores during our hiatus.”

“Tell Zlatan not until he stops trying to use me as a cup-rest.” David glanced at the files on his desk. He started to reach out for one, then paused. He shook his head hard and told himself he needed to focus or going over to Raúl’s place would be a moot point. Then he sighed and reluctantly looked at Silva. “Okay, okay, fine, goddamn it. We talked about my fight, but we didn’t argue about it and all Raúl said was he’d talked to Guardiola about it. Which was fucking great, because that’s going straight back to Figo who’ll just use it to make my life more difficult. And I told Raúl so, and he said fine, and we ate lunch. That’s not an argument.”

Silva looked at David. He scratched at the side of his face while looking at David. Then he closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Wait, so he tried to make it better and you told him off?”

“No, he didn’t—he wasn’t even doing that. He said he just wanted to know because he doesn’t like having Morientes around either, and anyway he said fine! So what’s the problem?” David snapped.

Cazorla fiddled with the script. “Because whenever you disagree on something and the other person says they’re fine at the end of it, they’re _never_ fine. C’mon, Guaje. We get a cliffhanger out of that every other week.” He glanced at the script. “Actually, twice this week.”

“That’s fake, okay? Just because it shows up on TV doesn’t mean it’s real.” Disgusted, David grabbed the nearest folder. He opened it up and read the top paragraph. Then he closed it and threw himself back in his chair. “ _Fuck_. Okay, so what do I…no, never mind. At this rate I’m not even getting out tonight, let alone getting to talk to Raúl.”

“No, you’re not getting out if you _don’t_ talk about it. Because face it, Guaje: you’re awful at working when you’re upset about Raúl. Why do you think we all pitched in to help you out, anyway?” Silva said. Then he paused and rethought. “Well, aside from the public make-out sessions. Those are nice too.”

David looked sideways at Silva.

“You don’t kill me for the same reason you don’t fire me,” Silva retorted cheerfully, reaching down into his bag. A moment later he came up with a giant, vaguely familiar folder with all colors of tabs sticking out. He flipped it out, squinted, and then nodded. “Here we go. Idiot ancillary argument to the argument about the ex number six-two.”

David covered his face with his hand. He managed to poke his bruised eye with his thumb and at that point he just gave up.


	2. Chapter 2

Raúl opened the door. Then he took things in for about a minute. Then he sighed and lifted his hand.

“I’m really sorry.” Somewhere behind that huge brown paper bag was David. He adjusted the bag in his arms and the tips of his hair briefly showed. “I was hacked off at Morientes and taking it out on you, and I should’ve just eaten the damn pizza.”

After a moment’s reconsideration, Raúl reached out with both hands. He grabbed the bag and pulled, but it was strangely reluctant to come. Then it came with a rush and a yelp, and Raúl barely managed to pivot out of the way as David fell over the threshold. The other man twisted sharply and got one hand under himself, apparently breaking the fall. But then he dropped down and curled up, hissing and clutching his arm to himself.

Raúl tried to lean over to see if David was all right, but the bag was a lot heavier than it’d looked. It started to skew his balance and he had to regrip it, and then do that again because whatever was in the bag was really hot. “David?”

“’m fine, I’m fine.” David slowly rolled over. He laid on his back and stared at the ceiling, his feet still out in the hall. That black eye of his looked even worse than at lunch. “Okay. Maybe not.”

“Do you…need a doctor?” Raúl asked, looking hastily around. He spotted a clear spot on a nearby table and dropped the bag off there, then came back to kneel by David. “Where does it hurt?”

David’s eyes started to slide over, then closed as he winced. He took a deep breath, then shook his head. “No. It’s not—no. I’m pretty sure the local ER’s got better things to do than deal with me.”

Just as Raúl started to reply, David began to push himself up. So instead Raúl gave the man a hand—David looked guilty about taking it—and then shut the door. Then he turned around and caught David trying to get into the bag.

“It’s dinner,” David said, slightly panicky. “Valencian! It’s good, really.”

Raúl pursed his lips. “So you wanted to cook for lunch, but you brought take-out for dinner?”

David blinked, grimaced and started to curse himself out. Then he just grabbed at his nose and sighed into his hand.

“Did Silva think it was a good idea? Or whichever one of them has the dating manual?” Raúl asked with his own sigh. When David shot him an embarrassed look, Raúl rubbed at his own nose. Then he dragged his hand back through his hair, wondering just why he’d waited up for this. “I thought we said it was fine.”

“I did! You did! But then you left without me, and you sent Iker down to tell me and I’m really sorry, okay? I’m an asshole.” A flicker of steel went through David’s otherwise crumpling face. “Not as bad as somebody who blabs about his private life in public, but I—”

“Talking to Silva about our non-existent fights isn’t blabbing?” All right, sometimes Raúl was a bit of a shit himself. But when it was set up that easily, it would’ve been hard for anyone to resist. Anyway, he regretted it as soon as he saw the stricken look on David’s face. “Look, David. I thought you didn’t want to talk about it at lunch. You were mad and I understood why, so I just thought I’d leave you be till you worked through it. And I went home because I had nothing to do at work and didn’t want to bother you. Iker went down because I figured you’d be too busy to check your texts.”

It took a couple minutes for David. His face had to finish figuring out whether it was going to be stunned or irritated or just plain sad. He stood there with all his thoughts visibly tangled up, his hands in the bag of food, black eye just heightening his pitiful state.

“You weren’t—you aren’t still mad at me?” David finally asked.

Raúl went over to him. “To be honest, I was a little annoyed. But I don’t need you to bring me dinner every time we disagree on something. I just want to know that we’ll talk about it later.”

For a moment longer David held his tense, closed-in posture. Then he took a deep breath. He pulled his hands out of the bag and rubbed at one. “I don’t get why you don’t get mad at me being an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot,” Raúl said. He leaned over and pecked David on the cheek, then looked into the bag. The food did smell really good. And with David coming over so often, Raúl didn’t exactly have much in the fridge for cooking up a decent meal. He might not think much of Raúl’s cooking skills, but he ate plenty of their products. “You’re just psychotic. But you’ve been like that as long as I’ve known you, so it’d be a little weird for me to start complaining about it now.”

“Well, you’re kind of masochistic, you know.” David still sounded a little defensive, but he’d put his hand on Raúl’s shoulder as he also looked into the bag. He gave Raúl about two more seconds before he reached in and started directing Raúl’s hand to certain cartons. “I mean, you just do this suffering thing, practically with the halo, like nobody’s ever suffered like that be…um. I mean.”

Raúl lifted his head in time to see the panic coming back into David’s face. He started to sigh, then stopped himself. Then he just grabbed David’s head in both hands and kissed the man on the lips. Hard. Till David wasn’t trying to talk anymore.

When Raúl let the other man off, David was wide-eyed—well, cockeyed—and flushed, and the look in the man’s eyes was so unashamedly admiring that Raúl almost flinched. Then Raúl had to suppress a snort; martyr indeed. “David,” Raúl said. “I don’t mind you being psychotic because I always know where I stand with you. I’d rather have that than get jerked around because some idiot thinks he’s a romantic hero who gets to cruise in and out of the sunset whenever he wants.”

David stared. He opened his mouth, shut it. His hands fidgeted on Raúl’s waist, and then he cracked a sudden but utterly gleeful smile. He abruptly wrapped his arms around Raúl and dragged them together, still grinning. “You’re so fucking sexy when you’re being a bastard.”

“I’m n—” Raúl started.

And stopped, because David was very enthusiastically trying to get his hands up Raúl’s shirt. For a moment Raúl thought they were changing gears too fast, and then David moaned and dragged his palm over Raúl’s belly.

They let the food get cold.

* * *

Fernando didn’t have to go in for the next few days. He usually would have, because he preferred to be as hands-on as he could and he had the clout for that these days, but instead he let his agent do the work he was paying the man to do and stayed away. He wrapped up his move-in—move- _back_ —and got himself reacquainted with the neighborhood. Found out his favorite café had moved and his favorite bakery had shut down. Coped with that, found new favorite cafés and bakeries. Was a grown adult.

On the morning of the day he had to go back in, he looked at himself in the mirror and told himself it was a great project and Villa wasn’t the kind of man to fuck him over in work for a personal issue, and he could be professional for six weeks. And after that he could tell Figo to move him to somebody who didn’t make his jaw lock, with another stellar credit on his CV. He even believed himself.

About six minutes after he walked into the lobby, he realized he was an overoptimistic moron. The two elevators right by the doors had a ‘No Service’ sign on them, so Fernando went around the corner to the next set of elevators, and found himself behind an oblivious Villa and Raúl. He tensed up, then took a long breath and opened his mouth to politely let the other men know he was there.

“I can’t send anybody,” Villa whined, tugging at his shirt-collar. “The only one who’s free is Joaquín and hell if I’m letting him near my closet again. Last time you know what I found in there?”

Raúl scratched at the back of his neck. The movement drew Fernando’s eyes there so he could clearly see the reddish bruise just under Raúl’s collar. “Well, if you’re coming over again, you need to bring some clothes with you. At this point _I’m_ running out. Either that or don’t come over because you’ll have to leave naked.”

A tiny voice in Fernando’s head said damn right, but sadly Villa was a dense bastard with no ESP abilities whatsoever. Villa just sighed and stabbed at the elevator button. “Yeah, I know. I really should go home for once. It’s just my place is so much farther that by the time I get there, I’m about ready to fall asleep in the car.”

“And you don’t get tired when you’re at my place?” Raúl asked, warm and amused and affectionate in a way that wrenched at Fernando.

Villa was quiet for a moment. His shoulders moved up and down under a shirt Fernando now recognized and about which he had forever-tainted memories. Then Villa snickered. “Yeah. Maybe I’ll pry Pablo off his computer and send him over to pick up a load. I might as well just keep a suitcase in my car.”

“There’s room in my closet if you want,” Raúl said.

“If you’re that far along, you might as well just move in together,” Fernando finally snapped.

Both of the men in front of him stiffened, and for a brief, misleading moment, Fernando felt pleased. But then Villa whirled around, his teeth already gnashing. Fernando didn’t care so much about that, but Raúl turned right after and _he_ looked so disgusted that Fernando remembered he was trying not to be an ass. Well, had been trying.

“What the fuck are you doing, stalking us now?” Villa hissed.

Raúl made an odd face at that. But then the elevator pinged and its doors opened, and Raúl just flat-out grabbed Villa and dragged him into it. Of course Villa didn’t want to go and struggled to get at Fernando, but Raúl somehow managed to not let him go and reach around him to hit the ‘close doors’ button. The elevator shut on Villa’s wild snarling, and Fernando was left in the lobby.

“Contemplating how bad you fucked that up?” said a voice behind Fernando.

It was familiar but Fernando had to turn around to recognize Pablo. He wasn’t in the mood and didn’t even try not to be annoyed at the other man. “What are you doing?”

“Coming into work, eavesdropping, wondering if I have to get elbowed in the head in the line of duty again,” Pablo said, already looking away. The sarcastic little shit pulled out a smart-phone and started madly thumb-typing away on it. Maybe he didn’t have the obvious son of a bitch look that Villa did, but that clearly wasn’t hampering him any. “You are coming in, right?”

“Yes,” Fernando replied, slowly through clenched teeth. “I signed a contract and approved the schedule and I’m going to honor both. I am a professional who can separate his private life and his work. It won’t be a problem. I won’t be a problem. There will be no elbow to the head.”

Pablo raised his head from his smart-phone. He blinked sleepily. Somehow he gave Fernando the impression of deeply questioning Fernando’s sincerity without moving his face.

“Well, okay.” The flat way Pablo said that didn’t convey any more confidence in Fernando. “Then can you hit the button to bring the elevator back?”

They looked at each other.

Fernando stuck out his arm and banged his knuckle into the button. The elevator chimed. Pablo nodded, his nose already reglued to his smart-phone. Just six weeks, Fernando told himself.

* * *

Getting David to brush off the elevator incident actually didn’t take that long, but Raúl suspected that had more to do with how tired the man was than with a sudden increase in David’s ability to forgive. Still, Raúl had to go up to his floor, so he just pecked David on the mouth and then rode the elevator up. By the time he got to his office, he’d run out of the usual standard prayers and was moving onto ones he’d picked up from an apocalypse script.

“So how are Villa and Mori do—okay.” Iker held up his hands, then brandished a folder. “Um, right, then. Uh, Cristiano doesn’t like the rewrites, and the writers think he’s being an ass. Do I send Kaká or Gutí?”

“Kaká,” Raúl said after a moment. He got behind his desk and checked his inbox, then turned towards his computer. Then he paused. He stared at his computer, but what he was actually seeing was David’s head being slammed repeatedly into a desk. The worst part was that he wasn’t sure who was doing the slamming.

Throat-clearing. “If it helps, Albiol’s getting hourly updates from Silva, and I convinced Albelda to jump in if it gets nasty again.”

“Albelda?” A stray memory nagged at Raúl. He stood there till he’d pinned it down, and then he frowned. “Didn’t he once stop a fight between you and Gutí by punching Gutí?”

Iker scrubbed at his hair. “…yes? But I made him promise not to punch Villa? Anywhere that Mori had already punched him, at least?”

Raúl opened his mouth to object, because punching Fernando wasn’t going to be any better. Then he shut his mouth and shook his head. He needed to stop worrying about this. He had work to do, and so did David and Fernando, and if they honestly couldn’t get past personal grudges, then nothing Raúl could do was going to help. At this point all Raúl could do was—

“Doc’s on speed-dial too,” Iker added. “You know the last time Sergio was in the ER? Well, this guy’s from that and Sergio thinks he’s great. Henrik Larsson. Great doctor, speaks a couple Spanish dialects, not afraid to threaten tranqs if he has to.”

“Thanks,” Raúl muttered. For a few more seconds he hesitated, and then he just made himself grab the nearest folder. Things would either take care of themselves or they wouldn’t. Either way, he wasn’t going to affect the outcome by standing around in his office. “All right, Cristiano aside, is production back on schedule?”

* * *

“I think it’d work better if my character said something about how sorry he was. I mean, he just ruined this man’s shop—his entire livelihood! He’s in a hurry but he’s not an asshole,” Fernando said.

Villa was barely looking at him, the man’s eyelids were so low, but what was showing was complete contempt. “He _is_ an asshole. He broke into that shop because he didn’t have the balls to man up to his earlier mistakes.”

“I don’t think that’s how he’s written. And that’s not how I’m going to play him.” Fernando leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not going to be an asshole.”

“Little late for that,” Villa muttered.

“Uh,” Silva said. He bent way over the table, probably less to be able to see Fernando and more to block out Villa’s silly little scowl. Smart boy. “Look, I get what you’re saying, but it’s a ten-minute webisode. We’ve got time constraints.”

“I can’t have an extra five seconds to say I’m sorry?” Fernando asked.

Villa sighed heavily. “Do you or do you not get that we don’t have time for your ego—”

“Look, I can just whip up an end slide that says he sent a letter of apology, maybe a check afterwards.” Pablo paused and thought. “That might be kind of cool. I mean, we could do it all up in old-fashioned lettering, like the title cards in old silent films.”

“I like that,” Silva said, plopping back in his seat. “We’re trying to do a retro riff anyway. And you can put in a teaser for the next webisode too, like, ‘Next week: will he also apologize to his jilted lover, or continue his quest for justice?’”

That…was a cool idea. Fernando liked it. And as he looked around the table, it seemed like everybody else was nodding too. Even Villa was just shifting around in his seat, plainly irritated that he couldn’t _dis_ like it.

“Okay, next line—” Silva started, flipping a page in his script.

“Fat chance of an apology, though,” Villa snorted.

Silva groaned and dropped his head on the desk. Fernando rolled his eyes, glimpsed Albelda glowering at him and half-heartedly picked up his script. God knew why Albelda kept lurking in the doorway like that, but Fernando was not playing that game today. Let Villa make himself look like an idiot. He did that fine without any help.

* * *

“Well, we got through the first reading and I didn’t kill him,” David said, tossing his coat on the couch. He stopped in place and stretched his arms out before him, then over his head. Then he dropped them, grimacing as much as he was sighing. “God, I’m beat. It’s really hard not killing that pretentious snot.”

Raúl came out of the kitchen holding a half-peeled onion. He smiled and kissed David, and then headed back to the kitchen. “I appreciate the effort, believe me.”

“Yeah?” Not really expecting or wanting an answer, David cracked his back a few times. Then he bent down to pick up the bag of clothes Joaquín had brought in during lunch and his back twanged hard. David cursed it out and pressed the heel of his hand against the smartass spot while he dug through the bag. It all looked normal, matched outfits, underwear…David paused, then pulled those out and balled them into his hand. Maybe he could run them through Raúl’s washer and dryer after dinner.

He carefully straightened up and found Raúl watching him from the kitchen doorway, head leaning against the jamb. The other man looked oddly sad, although when he realized David had seen him, he lifted his head and changed his expression to thoughtful.

“I…well, you said I needed clothes,” David said.

Raúl blinked, then snorted. A small smile cracked through all that moodiness and then broadened till Raúl had to muffle his chuckling with his hand. “I don’t know if I’d say you _need_ clothes,” Raúl said. He turned back into the kitchen for a moment, then came out with his hands empty. Then he walked over to pick up the bag. “At least not all the time.”

David grinned. “You know, I don’t know why I thought you were some prim old nanny. Er. I mean. Well, look, I did think that but you were depressed and really weren’t interested in anything remotely fun, so you did seem like—and you’re not now. And—”

“David,” Raúl said, half-exasperated, half-affectionate. It was a weird combination but David was getting used to it. To it and to kind of liking the way it made him feel.

“Anyway,” David said. He pointed at the bag in Raúl’s hands. “I’ll just stick that in the bathroom.”

Raúl sighed. His eyes did a little half-roll before his usual patient manners kicked in, and he just moved the bag away from David’s reaching hand. “Like I told you, there’s plenty of room in my closet. I can put it in there. The paella has to simmer a while anyway.”

Then Raúl started off. After a moment, David followed the other man into the bedroom. He watched Raúl open the closet and shove aside some hangers, then put the bag under the freed space. Raúl stood up and put his hand on a hanger. He paused for a while before taking his hand off and turning around. He started when he saw David.

“Shit. Sorry.” David fidgeted, absently prodding at his black—well, now bluish eye. Of course he poked too hard and made himself hiss. He shoved his palm over his eye and rubbed at it while trying to figure out Raúl’s expression with his other eye. It was back to that weird sad look. “You don’t have to be my maid, you know.”

“Oh. I wasn’t…I was just thinking, I’m going to have to give this closet over to somebody else in a few months anyway,” Raúl said. He looked around the room. “I haven’t moved in…it’s been a while.”

Since before he and Morientes hooked up. They’d gotten this place together, David knew, and suddenly that nasty comment from earlier in the morning resurfaced in David’s head. He’d never really thought about being in—well, it wasn’t just being there. It was fucking where Raúl and Morientes had fucked, and it was…those weren’t real nice thoughts for David. Not all of them. Okay, fine, David was a petty little shit sometimes.

“Anyway, you can leave a couple spare changes in here till then,” Raúl added. Then he saw David’s expression and frowned. “Or…in your car. If that’s what you really want to do.”

“What I really want to do is screw you silly,” David said.

He stepped forward. Raúl’s brows had shot up but the other man wasn’t trying to go anywhere. Instead he just stood there and looked at David, kind of confused but also kind of interested. But not nervous or anything like that, and that just…David changed his mind at the last minute about grabbing Raúl. Which probably looked weird because his hands did funny jerks in the air—Raúl arched his brows higher at them—but then David was touching Raúl’s cheek, running his fingertips over the slight stubble there. Raúl inhaled a little, his eyes darkening.

David threaded both his hands into Raúl’s hair and pulled the other man close. Their lips brushed together, then met again, slow but messy. Neither of them were really working at it, which made it funny that it suddenly became so fucking _hot_. Suddenly Raúl had his hands rumpling up David’s shirt, his legs rubbing at David’s jeans like he wanted to rub them right off. And David had his arm hooked over Raúl’s shoulder so he could drag up Raúl’s shirt by the fistful while he just smashed their mouths together. Working at it now but it wasn’t any less messy.

They started to teeter, and then Raúl gave first, stumbling backwards. A couple times they jounced apart long enough to get off some clothes, so when Raúl finally flipped onto the bed, he was missing his shirt and his trousers were barely hanging off his left foot. He kicked them off while David crawled on top of him, mouthing every piece of bare skin in reach. One spot really got to Raúl and he threw back his head and moaned, let his whole throat arch and David just crouched and looked up at its curve.

Then Raúl grunted and hauled David up. He wanted it _now_ , damn it, said the way he bit David’s neck. David shoved at Raúl, his knees not on things letting him move. He got his knees to somewhere that would, and then rolled them over. Then he cursed and rolled them the other way, to the side with the drawer with the stuff. Fucking hell, he was going to move in his fucking dresser if he had to do that one more damn time.

He wasn’t kidding anybody, even himself. He’d roll as many times as he had to if he ended up with Raúl moving on his fingers like that, flush-faced and bright-eyed. David buried his face in Raúl’s neck and felt the other man wrap his arm around David’s head. Raúl dug his nails into the back of David’s shoulder as David pulled out his fingers, then dragged them across David’s spine when David pushed his prick up Raúl’s thigh and into the other man. A hoarse cry escaped Raúl and David wanted to look, but Raúl wouldn’t let go of his head. Instead Raúl threw them over, so he was lying on David and his weight made David sink into him even more, and David couldn’t have seen a fucking thing even if he could have gotten his head up. All David could do was get a good hold on Raúl and fuck him. Fuck him till something cracked dangerously loud in the bedframe, fuck him till they couldn’t hear the bedframe any more for their gasping, fuck him till Raúl twisted hard around him and arched one last time, and dragged David with him as he came.

They collapsed where they were, the heat slowly seeping away from their sticky bodies. Once Raúl moved his knuckles over the back of David’s head, disjointed and haphazard like he was trying to do something else. Maybe he wanted up.

“I’m glad you’re getting along with Fernando,” Raúl said.

Maybe he wanted to totally fuck this up.

“Not because…not because I want you two to be friends or anything,” Raúl went on. He caressed David’s head again and this time he probably meant to do that. “You can make up your own mind about that. But just because…because this sounds odd, but I don’t want you thinking about him, or him and me. I just want you to think about me.”

David finally levered himself up; Raúl’s fingers drew down through his hair as David lifted his head, then fell to David’s shoulder. “No,” David said. “No, it’s not weird.”

For another moment Raúl looked pensive. Then he smiled, and leaned up to kiss David on the mouth. And fuck whatever had happened in this bed before now. David might be petty but he wasn’t an idiot, at least not about this.

* * *

“I think he’s been doing a lot better lately,” Silva’s voice said. “He hasn’t called Mori an asshole in three day—oops! Um…so David can’t make it, but I’m here and we can get started now. Um. So.”

Fernando tensed, then shrugged it off. He wasn’t real thrilled with the partisanship of Villa’s staff, but Silva looked so genuinely embarrassed that Fernando couldn’t work up that much irritation at the man. Well, that and he’d be delusional to not admit that Villa and his ongoing… _issues_ …had become an important part of the production. Might as well give it a starring role in the webisodes, at this rate. “Don’t make up an excuse. Just tell me why I’ve been standing here for ten minutes and he’s still not here.”

Silva was still staring at Fernando, wide eyes going up and down…and down. Then his phone crackled and he started. He sighed and told whoever it was that he had to go and to just bring up the New Year’s Eve party if they had to. Then he shut off his phone and stuffed it into his bag. “We, uh, had a problem with the writers. Well, one writer. Gourcuff was supposed to fix the love scene but…”

“He didn’t?” Fernando asked. He wasn’t entirely sure he bought it. There was too much shifting going on with Silva’s feet.

“Well, we don’t know. Because we can’t _find_ his fucking French ass,” Silva muttered, sounding a little more like himself. He finished digging up a notepad from his bag, then dumped the bag to the side and wandered over to the table with the computers. “He left this bizarre message on David’s voicemail about doubles and fate and absinthe, and basically he just flaked out. David’s trying to hunt him down so we can figure out the fucking props already.”

Pablo was hunched over one of the laptops. He’d barely looked up when Silva walked in and now didn’t seem to notice he had Silva peering over his shoulder. God knew where the others had gotten off to, except that they’d better get back before Villa did. Because if one more person made Fernando stay in this damn suit longer than he had to, he was walking out.

“So how’s it going?” Silva finally asked the back of Pablo’s head. He gestured vaguely at Fernando. “He looks…okay…”

“He looks like he’s in a skintight, bright green suit with little lights all over it,” Pablo said, not looking up. “But hey, he’s got the legs for it.”

Silva twitched, whipped his head up to look horrified at Fernando, and then appeared to think the better of it. He shrugged and bent over Pablo. “Yeah, and the rest of the body. But the color doesn’t do much for his complexion.”

“I’m right here,” Fernando said. “Right here, and still mad at your boss.”

“Look, it’s really not his fault.” Silva straightened up and gave Fernando a half-pleading, half-exasperated look. “If he doesn’t find Gourcuff, we’ve got to delay the love scene shoot for at least a day, and that’s way more expensive than sending me here in his place. And he said to tell you he’s sorry.”

Fernando couldn’t help the eye-roll. He honestly couldn’t.

“Do that again,” Pablo suddenly said.

About to tell Fernando again how he really shouldn’t be blaming the biggest thorn in his side over the past few weeks, Silva froze in place with his brows knitted. Then he turned and looked at Pablo. “Wha—”

“Not you, him.” Pablo waved a hand at Fernando. “That came out weird. If there’s a problem with the sensors, I wanna know now before we start recording.”

After a moment, Fernando rolled his eyes again. He felt more than a little ridiculous, and it didn’t help when he remembered what he was wearing.

For a couple seconds Pablo squinted at the screen while Silva looked on nervously. Then Pablo nodded curtly and leaned back in his chair. He finally looked up, blinked, and then slowly spun in his chair. “Where the fuck is everybody? We can get started now.”

Fernando opened his mouth, but Silva beat him to it with a noise that was pure anger. Silva slammed his notebook down on the table so hard that even Pablo jumped, then stormed off towards the door. “Oh, my fucking God what is wrong with people I’m going to _kill_ them. Kill them and _give them to Joaquín._ ” A meter off the door, Silva paused. He turned around with a sweetly apologetic expression. “Sorry guys, I’ll be right back with them.”

Then he turned around. He just about yanked the knob out, and then slammed the door so hard behind him that Fernando winced at the clash of metal on metal. The sound echoed for a good long while.

A scraping noise made Fernando start. He looked over, but Pablo was just moving the laptop. Fernando suppressed a sigh and tried not to think about how his neck was itching. Then he did sigh, but at himself. He pulled the hood off his head and scratched his neck.

Pablo let a weird hiccup, like he’d started to speak and then sucked the word back into his mouth. His hand was half-raised too, but as Fernando looked up, Pablo put that down. He shrugged and folded his hands behind his head.

“Can I sit while we’re waiting?” Fernando asked.

“Yeah, sure.” The other man tapped a few keys on the laptop while Fernando got himself a chair. “You could’ve done that any time you wanted. I’m not sure why you just stood there.”

After a long moment, Fernando went over to the table. He grabbed the chair Silva had been using and Pablo looked up, then opened his mouth. The man’s mouth stayed open as Fernando spun the chair around, straddled it and took a look at Pablo’s laptop. He only moved when Fernando, scandalized, made a grab for the laptop.

“Hey! Off!” Pablo smacked Fernando’s hand away, then scooped up his computer and protectively clutched it to his chest. “What the fuck—”

“I am goddamn naked on that. And I know I’m supposed to be fully clothed in all the scenes where we’re using this stuff,” Fernando hissed. “Give that over, you—you—weirdo.”

When Pablo decided to show some emotion, he had a pretty impressive range. His eyes widened, then narrowed. He squawk-slapped at Fernando’s second attempt, then skidded his chair back till he hit some equipment. The outrage instantly disappeared; he twisted around to pat concernedly at the equipment, then abruptly turned back just as Fernando was maneuvering up on his blind side. His foot came up and Fernando dropped back, and there they were, Fernando in the damn stretch suit, crouched and ready, and Pablo with his foot up and hands pressed tight to his laptop, eyes wild.

“You’re not naked! And I’m not the fucking weirdo—you are, you fucking tech illiterate!” Pablo yelped. His mouth moved for a couple more seconds, but nothing came out. He noticed and exhaled disgustedly, looking around. Then he hissed at Fernando. “Don’t you fucking come closer. You moron, you aren’t naked, okay? You’re just not wearing clothes because I haven’t animated those on yet! See?”

Before Fernando could reply, Pablo flipped the laptop around and showed him the screen. And there Fernando was in all his…well, okay, the skin color was off and it wasn’t the green suit because there was no suit. There also were no…there were some parts missing. Important parts.

“It’s not like a camera. It just reads what the sensors read and they’re attached to a skintight suit and see?” Then Pablo slammed down the laptop screen and flopped back in his chair. He rolled his eyes. “God. Nobody ever listens at the tech briefing. And before you ask, yeah, I’ll give you all your bits. Just not _now_.”

“Oh. Okay,” Fernando said. He started to sit down, then barely caught himself as he realized his seat wasn’t under him. Once he pulled that up, he sat and pulled at his hair. It felt all smushed from the hood. “Sorry. I…well…”

Pablo squeezed his eyes shut and pinched his nose.

“Fine, you’re not a weirdo. But that comment about my legs was a little odd,” Fernando finally said.

Pablo opened his eyes and looked vaguely irritated with a touch of surprise. “You telling me, you, big acting star, you’re body-shy? You strip off in eighty-five percent of your stuff.”

Fernando opened his mouth, paused, and looked a little closer at Pablo. “Eighty-five percent?”

“Yeah, and seventy-two percent it’s full-body—” Pumped up on righteousness, Pablo rambled on for a good two seconds longer than he should have. Then he shut his mouth, shut up his expression and clutched his computer. He looked weirdly vulnerable that way—vulnerable and young and blushing, and this was just a weird feeling for Fernando. “Fuck.”

“So maybe I wasn’t naked naked, but you were still having a good look,” Fernando eventually said.

Pablo pursed up his mouth till his lips almost disappeared. Those hooded eyes of his made him look like he wasn’t looking straight-on at Fernando even when he was.

Fernando grinned a little. “And you’ve watched my other work.”

The other man twitched, then abruptly twisted his chair around. He put his laptop back down on the table and lifted the top. A flicker of worry crossed his face, but was swiftly replaced with irritation as he started typing. The tip of his tongue poked out of his lips. He was still blushing.

“I’m not a fan of being sleazy, but I’m not going to lie and say I don’t think I look good in a mirror,” Fernando drawled, leaning back in his seat. He absently looked towards a distant noise. “Did you actually need to take notes on my face that other day, or was that an excuse too?”

Still nothing from Pablo.

As cute as the other man was when embarrassed, tormenting people wasn’t really Fernando’s thing. He didn’t try a third time. He just sat there and wondered where Silva and the others were, and if Villa was really chasing that French scriptwriter. Or maybe Villa had slipped off and was feeling Raúl up in some closet somewhere. Fernando still hadn’t had the guts to go explain himself to Raúl about the fight, but he’d seen Raúl around a few times and the other man had seemed a lot more…well, happy but also goddamn well-fucked. The good part of Fernando, the part that genuinely wanted to make up for what he’d did, it could accept Raúl being happy without him. But did the man have to look so…and from Villa, for God’s sakes. A mouthy, scrawny little bastard. “He looks okay, but okay’s just okay,” Fernando muttered to himself. 

“Yeah, fine, you’re fucking sex on a stick, but you’re also an asshole,” Pablo snapped.

Fernando jumped. He’d actually forgotten the other man was there, and when he looked, he was surprised to find Pablo still hunched up. “Excuse me? David Villa is—”

“Known as an asshole, and you’re known as a nice guy, but that’s all fucked up if you ask me.” Pablo flicked a look at Fernando that was still embarrassed and also alarmed, like the man knew he was crossing the line. But also Pablo was mad, in a grim, determined way that made Fernando sit and listen to him. “Way I heard it, you fucking dumped Raúl. And then you came back thinking he was still going to be there. Villa’s kind of nuts and I still don’t know if I’m gonna see HR about him elbowing me in the head, but he works his ass off and then goes and still tries to do nice things for his boyfriend. He doesn’t have the time for it but he does it anyway.”

“All right, you haven’t even heard the tenth of it—” Fernando started.

“So why don’t you fucking talk about it instead of acting all shitty in meetings and wasting everybody’s time?” Pablo shot back. “Fine, Villa does that too, but you started it, when you picked that fight with him. You didn’t have to do that and it’s been screwing things up ever since.”

For a moment Fernando just had his mouth hang open. He wasn’t an asshole. He was short-sighted, and lost his temper sometimes, but he didn’t try to do that, and he felt like shit afterward. _And_ he tried to fix it. And Pablo had no—it was one thing to get a scolding from Pepe or Figo, who’d both been around for the break-up with Raúl, but Pablo had just walked in a couple weeks ago, and he already thought he was competent to judge Fernando? “You little prick, as soon as I’m out of this monkey suit we’re getting things straight.”

Pablo’s head went up and he looked funny at Fernando. So did Silva, coming up with all the other staff behind him. “Interrupting something?” Silva chirped, far too sunnily. “Well, stuff it because I have a deadline and I will _break ankles_ to make it and I’m fucking short enough. I’d be spitting out your toes before you even bend over.”

Fernando opened his mouth. Pablo opened his mouth.

Silva stopped smiling. The temperature of the room dropped sharply. “ _What_.”

After a moment, Fernando got up. A little slower, Pablo grunted and resumed pressing keys.

“Yay! We’re working!” Beaming again, Silva turned around and looked at the others. They scattered to their posts and Silva turned the full force of his manic cheerfulness on Fernando and Pablo. “By the way, you’re so giving me the dirt or I’m telling the lunchroom I caught you two seeing just how sensitive that suit is.”

“You’re worse than Villa,” Fernando muttered, going back to his mark.

Silva nodded happily. “Yep, that’s why I don’t have to chase down crazy French writers. Now, let’s make a show! That’s family-friendly!”

Pablo groaned into his keyboard. Fernando glanced back over his shoulder, then bit back his sigh. He pulled on the hood and told himself once again that the project was worth it.

* * *

Luís knocked on the doorframe, then came into Raúl’s office and helped himself to a seat. He splayed his arms on the armrests, looked around and let out a comfortable breath as he settled into the chair.

Raúl put down his highlighter and phone, and waited.

“Listen, I’m not here to tell you what the employee manual says about workplace relationships, but I think you need to lay off Villa a little,” Luís said.

“I…don’t know what you heard, or what’s happened, but as far as I know, we’re fine,” Raúl replied after a moment.

Luís sighed. “Well, yes, exactly. And as your friend, I think that that’s wonderful. You deserve that much, at least. But as your boss, I have to say that I need Villa, not his zombie alter-ego. He’s still keeping up with his work and that’s great, but I’m not so heartless that I want him to do that at any cost.”

For a moment, Raúl was—offended, actually. Because he wasn’t some idiot teenager and he did already know about that, and he was worried, too. He wasn’t in this for the damn sex; he was in it for the whole package and he didn’t want the zombie version either. He’d brought it up with David too, but the other man had insisted that he was fine. Raúl wasn’t about to buy that line, not with the haggard way David was looking lately, but at the same time it wasn’t that easy to tell David to _not_ come over. 

For that matter, Raúl’s place was a shorter commute and probably tired David out less…aside from the sex but again, what was Raúl supposed to do? Fake a headache every night? Even if David bought it—which he wouldn’t, because David was amazingly good at picking up on Raúl’s lies and would call Raúl on it and that was one reason why Raúl loved him—Raúl was…not that much of a saint. There was a good reason why they always ended up with their clothes off.

“I’m not here to blame you,” Luís added, drawing Raúl’s attention back to him. He grinned a little, having clearly enjoyed Raúl’s lapse into mental ranting. “Pep’s already pointed out that you’re in a difficult position and that’s why I’m here to—”

“Don’t order David to do something. Please. I’ll…I’ll take care of it, but let me do it.” Raúl leaned forward, trying to project as much determination and earnestness as he could. “I think it’ll work better. If you tell him to do something, it’ll just upset him and he won’t do it.”

Luís blinked, then shifted around, muttering to himself. He smoothed the hair back from his face.

“Pep said that too, didn’t he?” Raúl said.

“Actually, he said if I tried something like sticking Morientes and Villa together on a project without him approving the tactics, I’d…you don’t need to know that part.” The faintly persecuted look on Luís’ face vanished as he straightened up. He looked at Raúl with renewed confidence. “So no, I promise I won’t get involved, as long as it does get taken care of soon. I just dropped in to make sure we were on the same page, and to offer any help you might need.”

“Thank you,” Raúl said after a moment. He knew he should say a bit more than that, but at the moment his mind was a blank so he picked up a nearby pen. “I…like I said, I’m working on it, but I’ll let you know if I need anything.”

Nodding, Luís seemed satisfied. He turned the conversation to some of Raúl’s projects and they chatted amiably for a few minutes before Luís left. Then Raúl was able to drop his head into his hands and press at his temples.

He’d barely done that when somebody came in. Afraid Luís had caught him, Raúl jerked to attention, but found it was only an apologetic Iker. Sighing, Raúl put his head back into his hands. “No, it’s not you. It’s…never mind, what is it?”

“Not much. Just wanted to let you know that your apartment broker called while you were out, and wants you to call back as soon as possible. Something about the apartment history.” Iker paused, then reached behind himself and shut the door. He eyed Raúl. “So how’s the search going?”

Raúl sank lower in his chair. First Villa, now this: if he had to call back immediately, that wasn’t a good sign. “This’ll make the fourth time something’s come up. I’ve had termites, mold, faulty gas and God knows what for this one. At this rate I’ll have to stay in a hotel when my lease is up—oh.”

After a moment, Iker coughed into his hand. “Oh?”

“Oh, nothing. I just remembered something else I needed to do,” Raúl said, giving himself a shake. He picked up his phone and then dug around for the folder with all the apartment information. “Anything else?”

“Not really. There’s a thing with Benzema but until Higuaín gets back to me on it, I don’t know enough to say if you need to look into it. Oh, and…there’s a thing with Mori.” Iker waved his hands around to keep Raúl in his seat. “ _Not_ Villa for once. Actually, I don’t even know if I should—well, you’ll hear it from the office gossip anyway. Everyone’s talking about it.”

Raúl resettled himself and began looking in his phone for his realtor’s mobile number. “That slow of a day?”

“Well, nobody was expecting Mori to get over you that fast,” Iker said. “Especially after he got into that fight with Villa. I’m still not sure if it’s not some Silva trick, to be honest.”

“Fernando’s seeing someone else?” Raúl asked, looking up. He was surprised, too. It wasn’t that he’d wanted Fernando to stay stuck on him; on the contrary, he’d wished quite fervently that the other man would move on. But it just didn’t seem like Fernando. The man wasn’t exactly grudge-holding, not in the malicious sense, but he had a long memory.

Iker shrugged. “Flirting, anyway. It’s that new geek Villa hired, of all people.”

It took a moment for Raúl to figure out who Iker meant. Since he and David had started dating, Raúl had gotten to know most of David’s people but he hadn’t been down there recently thanks to the webisode project. It hadn’t seemed like a good idea to stress David out even more. “Pablo? That’s his name, right? Well, good luck to him.” Raúl finally found the number; he really needed to clean out his addressbook sometime. Yet another to-do item. “I’m going to call my realtor, get that straightened out, and then I want to get people together to discuss the evening special. Say in a half-hour?”

“All right,” Iker said, turning.

He left and Raúl called the realtor. As expected, it was bad news: the leasing company had neglected to mention that they were bankrupt and no longer had the authority to lease out that building. The realtor thought maybe Raúl could contact the people who were taking over the building, but Raúl just told her to look at other places. Then he called David and got the man’s voicemail.

Raúl took a slow breath, listening to David’s message. He was thinking so hard about what he wanted to say that he jumped at the beep. Then he hissed at himself, but stopped in the middle of that; he didn’t exactly have the time. He quickly told the recorder that he had to meet with the realtor later so David couldn’t come over, and then shut off his phone. Then Raúl sat back and breathed again. He looked at his phone, told himself it was the right thing to do and anyway not seeing the man for a few days was not a big deal. Then he put his phone away and went back to work.

* * *

Something was up and David didn’t like it. He stalked into his office and dumped his bag, then reached for his computer. But somebody knocked. He froze, gritted his teeth and slowly turned around. “This had better be good. My fucking new lease fell through, I’m homeless in three weeks and—”

“What’d you say to him?” Silva sighed.

David stood and blinked and finally just dropped against his desk. “ _Who_?”

“Raúl,” Silva said, in the same slow patient tone you’d use with children.

For a moment David didn’t get it. Then he rolled his eyes and flopped back into his chair. It skidded dangerously and he grabbed the edge of his desk just in time. “Why the hell do you think that every time I’m in a bad mood, it’s him?” 

Silva sighed and hiked his mobile out of his pocket. He checked something on it.

“It can’t be him if I haven’t seen him in a fucking week,” David snapped. “It’s not him. It’s this goddamn project from hell and my fucking landlord and my fucking realtor.”

“Uh-huh,” Silva said, texting one-handed.

David slumped into the chair. He chewed on his lip, then twisted around and grabbed the keyboard from his desk. He typed a sentence, tossed the keyboard down and turned back to Silva. “I didn’t do anything! I didn’t! The last I heard, I was going over to his place after work, only he called up to say he had an appointment with his realtor. And he’s been with his fucking realtor ever since. He’s seeing her more than me.”

“You sure you didn’t say anything? Because you know, you tend to do that thing where you say really stupid shit but you don’t realize it’s stupid shit till we tell you?”

“I didn’t say anything. And if I did, I already tried to apologize but Raúl just told me he had no idea what I meant but it wasn’t a problem. _And_ he said if you lot thought it was, he’d give you a call.” After a moment, David dropped his arms to the sides of the chair. “Okay, goddamn it, it’s Raúl. He fucking remembered he hates me. That’s what I think.”

Silva finally looked up. He frowned at David for a while. Then he put away his phone and came over to David’s desk. David started to ask what he was doing but Silva ignored him. The man rapidly reshuffled the many piles there into two, one only a few files high and one that reached from Silva’s chin to his waist when he picked it up. When David reached for them, Silva stuck out his foot and kicked David’s chair so it rolled into the wall.

“Oops,” Silva said, wincing. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to do it that hard.”

“My fucking elbow,” David grunted, hunched over.

“So anyway, just stay put with that. I’m gonna take these and make sure Joaquín and Albelda have too much to do to leave the office for a couple hours, and then I’m gonna check on the Raúl thing.” Silva was already halfway out the door. “You can thank me by not blocking his ass the next time you two go at it in public.”

David got up but his foot somehow hooked around part of his chair. He tripped and fell against his desk, just barely keeping his chin from knocking into it. He scrabbled a couple times, got himself on his feet again and made a run for the door.

Silva was gone. “Goddamn it,” David said.

“Can I see—” somebody said.

“Fuck off,” David snapped. He yanked his office door shut, then went for the elevator. Whatever the hell was up with him and Raúl, having Silva fuck around in it wasn’t going to help. He had to find Raúl first.


	3. Chapter 3

“Busy as usual,” Fernando observed, coming up behind Pablo. “I guess if you want a meeting with him, you’ve just about got to punch him in the head.”

Villa disappeared into the hall, swearing up a storm. Pablo stayed put, his shoulders slightly raised. Then he dropped them and turned around and looked up at Fernando with bitter eyes. “What the fuck do you want?”

Fernando blinked. “…look, I was just teasing—”

Pablo’s eyes widened a little. Then he looked away and grabbed at his hair, every bit of him radiating disbelief. “You fuckhead, it’s not that stupid joke. It’s the fact that thanks to you, everybody thinks you’re fucking me and I don’t have enough self-respect to not be your rebound.”

“Wait, what the—Silva. It’s got to be Silva.” As much as Villa irritated Fernando, even he would admit Villa wasn’t that twisted. Mostly because the man didn’t have that kind of attention span, but…that cheerful little shit. “What the hell did I…what did _you_ do, anyway? Don’t you all stick together in a pack?”

“Well, I guess not,” Pablo snapped.

Then he stomped off and left Fernando staring after him. He’d been getting on Fernando’s nerves too, but not that bad. Not bad enough to deserve getting caught in the crossfire, and it really was getting ridiculous. Fernando wasn’t managing to be professional or to keep up any semblance of a friendship with Raúl, and as things stood, he was likely going to ruin his first big project since he’d come back from France. What a comeback.

Fernando took a deep breath and went out to the elevator. He hit the button for Figo’s floor.

* * *

“He just left,” Nuno told Raúl. “I think he went to see Pep, but I’m not sure. Do you want me to take a message?”

Raúl looked at his watch, then mentally reviewed his schedule. “Do you think he’ll be back soon?”

Nuno shrugged. “You can try waiting a few minutes if you want, but I really don’t know. He didn’t say.”

After another moment’s indecision, Raúl opted for going into Luís’ office. He noted that Luís had rearranged the furniture again and took a seat in the corner. But when he put his hand down on the arm, something sharp caught his finger and cut it. He jerked his hand up, hissing, then looked at the cut.

It wasn’t bad but it was bleeding a lot. Raúl got up and went into the attached private bathroom to try and find something to staunch the floor. He was running his finger under the tap when he heard someone come inside. “I’m in here,” he called out. “Just borrowing the sink, but I’ll be out in a…oh.”

To his credit, Fernando looked uncomfortable. “Hi. I…wanted to see Luís.”

“I don’t sound like him,” Raúl had to point out.

“No, you don’t.” Fernando leaned his arm against the jamb and ruffled his hair. Then he dropped his arm and looked seriously at Raúl. “But when I heard you, I figured this was my only chance to talk to you. And I’m sorry I have to corner you like this. I can understand why you haven’t wanted to talk to me. But I wanted to—”

Raúl moved and water splashed up his arm. He’d forgotten about that; he turned off the tap with his wrist and then stepped back to grab a wad of tissues to dry himself off. “To apologize. Which is fine. But you’ve already apologized a few times and then you just—you don’t change, ‘Nando. It’s just the same thing all over again and I don’t know if you really mean these apologies.”

“I know,” Fernando said, grimacing. His hand sneaked back up into his hair, like it always did when he was nervous. “And I’m sorry—I’m really, honestly sorry about that. I don’t want to do this to you. I do want to be better than I have been. But I’m starting to think I can’t do it—that’s why I’m here to talk to Figo. I want to tell him that I can’t work with Villa.”

Well, that…Raúl didn’t know what to say to that. He looked down and saw the bloody sodden tissue in his hand, and peeled it off. He got another tissue and wrapped it around his cut finger.

“I don’t want you to think I’m being petty again. I know it’ll be a huge setback for the project and believe me, I’m not proud of having to back out of it. I know it won’t look good for me either. But I don’t want to keep hurting others just because I can’t deal,” Fernando added quietly.

“I just don’t understand why it’s so difficult for you.” Raúl looked up at the other man. “I know how David is. But I know you, too. And I know—we know it ended for good for us. You don’t usually hold onto something like this.”

Fernando seemed about to disagree, but then he sank back against the jamb and thought about it. He scratched the side of his face. “No, but…I did love you. I hope you know that. I know I didn’t act like it, I just thought about myself, but I really did love you. I—when I left I didn’t think of it as hurting you. I know that sounds incredible, but it’s true. I was trying to help myself. I know it sounds…well, it is selfish. But it wasn’t supposed to be malicious.”

“No, I believe you,” Raúl said slowly. He couldn’t help a smile at Fernando’s arched brows. “Oh, believe me, you hurt me. You hurt me and I keep that mind with you, even though I still can’t…I can’t hate you. I understand why, and I loved you, too. But you’re not cruel on purpose.”

“I think that that’s why. Because it might be over, but I want to know that you get someone you deserve, after me. And even when I was friendly with Villa, I thought he was—”

“He’s not what you think,” Raúl interrupted.

Fernando snorted. “Oh, I don’t know.”

“Well, you don’t,” Raúl said more sharply. He waited for a chastened Fernando to pay attention to him. “You don’t know him. I didn’t either. I thought he was an upstart son of a bitch who hated me. But he’s not. He’s…not as good as you with the romance, but he’s a lot better at the love. I’m sorry, ‘Nando, but it’s true. He says some stupid things but he feels the stupidity a lot more than you ever did. When he apologizes, I know he means it because I know he’s in as much pain as I am over it.”

A funny, incredulous little exhale burst out of Fernando’s mouth. He looked away, then back at Raúl. Then he sobered up, and for a while just stared at Raúl. The disbelief went away and in its place came hurt and anger and finally a sad disappointment.

“He’s really that for you.” When Raúl nodded, Fernando’s mouth went thin and tight. He moved his head around like he was working out a neck cramp, then let out a long low breath. “Well. Well, I still don’t see it. But I have to believe you. You wouldn’t…you would know. I…all right, I think I can live with that. I don’t like it, and I don’t know if I’ll ever like it, but I can live with it if you can.”

“Good.” Raúl checked his finger. It’d stopped bleeding, so he trashed the tissue. “Are you still going to ask Luís to get out of the project?”

“I guess no—” Fernando started, sighing.

Then he stopped and twisted around. Someone—two people had just come loudly into the office, banging the door and something else as well. It sounded like…Raúl came up and saw it was Pep and Luís. Pep came first, windmilling his arms as he nearly walked into his desk. It was probably hard to see when his eyes were popping that much, a small catty part of Raúl said.

Desk spotted, Pep about-faced and damn near decked Luís as he threw out his arms again. “Because it’s a disgrace! It’s an utter—”

“It is,” Luís said, hands hooked over his pockets. “It is a disgrace.”

“I am not putting up with these lies. This is complete bullshit. Bullshit! Do you hear me?” Pep demanded.

“Excuse m—” Fernando half-heartedly said.

“I hear you loud and clear,” Luís drawled.

Pep stood there and stared at Luís, shaking in place. His mouth opened and shut soundlessly.

“We’re—” Raúl said into the silence.

An inarticulate scream of rage came from Pep. He launched himself at Luís, who barely got his hands up to Pep’s hips before the two of them went over. Sheer shock kept Raúl in place. He was barely aware of Fernando beside him, swearing violently. Then Fernando started forward and Raúl’s arm shot out of its own accord to stop him.

Raúl’s arm was quicker than either of them. It was a few seconds after that before Raúl finally picked up on the fact that Pep wasn’t biting Luís in the face. Well, not in a way that Luís didn’t seem to be enjoying. And Luís’ hands weren’t any higher but that was because they were busy divesting Pep of his trousers. Suddenly they were looking at Luís enthusiastically squeezing Pep’s naked ass, and Raúl belatedly thought that this wasn’t very appropriate viewing.

Pep ripped open Luís’ shirt and practically slapped his tongue to the other man’s chest before going at Luís’ mouth again like it had the most delicious sweet in the world in there. He grabbed Luís’ hand off his ass and shoved it between his legs, and Fernando started making choking noises.

“ _Out now_ ,” Raúl hissed.

Fernando nodded vigorously. But when he took a step forward, Pep abruptly rolled Luís and himself directly in the way. Then Pep wrapped his legs around Luís and actually hooked his ankles together. Raúl really had had no idea Pep was that flexible.

“Oh, Mary, mother of God,” Fernando muttered. He turned on his heel, hit Raúl with his shoulder and barely stopped as he ducked into the bathroom.

That was—a good idea. Raúl dove back there too.

* * *

Nuno Gomes stood up, eyes wide. “No you can’t go in there,” he said in a rush.

David paused, then shoved his way past the other man. “Raúl’s in there, right? Well, I don’t care what he and Figo are—”

Suddenly David was face-down on Nuno’s desk with his arm twisted painfully behind his back and a box of paperclips dangerously close to being up his nose. “I said you can’t go,” Nuno snapped.

“But—fuck, let go, would you?” David hissed. “I need to talk to Raúl.”

“You can’t,” Nuno said again.

David started to ask why not, only to finally hear the distinct sounds of noisy, furniture-wrecking sex coming from Figo’s office. He went limp with disbelief. That couldn’t—no, it wasn’t and he was a fucking insecure idiot for even contemplating that.

“Raúl’s in there but you can’t go yet.” Nuno pressed on David’s arm a last time, then let go. He stood back and watched David lever himself off the desk, all slender and big-eyed and delicate-looking except for the scowl on his face. “Just wait a couple minutes. They’re almost done.”

David did so, impatiently. He scuffed around in a small circle in front of Nuno’s desk till he noticed Nuno was giving him dirty looks, and then he went right up and leaned on the desk. Fuck Nuno, if he wanted David off that badly, he could get his nails dirty and pull his crazy bodyguard shtick again.

Finally the noises started to get quieter. Then they seemed to stop, but when David started forward, Nuno held up a hand. The man listened intently, head cocked to one side—inside the office somebody let out a muffled exclamation. Nuno waited a moment longer, then lowered his hand.

About time. David went over and yanked open the door.

He saw Raúl. He saw Fernando Morientes right behind Raúl. “Why the fuck are you always stalking us?” David snapped at Morientes before turning to Raúl. “Listen, if you see Silva, go the other way. He’s trying to do something and I didn’t ask him to do it, I swear, but I can’t find him to tell him I’ll…what?”

Raúl was weirdly pale. “We didn’t have sex,” he blurted out.

David blinked. “No, Figo and Guardiola did. Right? I mean, that’s what I thought I heard. Who else is in here?”

He tried to look around Raúl, but he barely got a glimpse of Guardiola’s head stuffed under Figo’s arm—Figo was alert and watching with interest, David noted disgustedly—before Raúl bundled him out of the room. David grabbed Raúl as soon as he had his balance and shook the other man. He started to ask what was the problem when Raúl suddenly kissed him.

“Thank you,” Raúl said fervently, once he’d let David up for air. “Thank you.”

“What for?” David asked. He reached up and touched Raúl’s cheek, then pulled his hand back. “Oh…so…are we okay? Because I don’t know what I did that’s so bad you’ve been avoiding me all week, but I’m really—”

“Absolutely nothing,” Raúl swore, and kissed David again.

For some godawful reason, David didn’t just take it. He fucking thought, and then he realized what Raúl was thanking him for and muffled a yelp in Raúl’s mouth. Raúl eased off and leaned back, still looking nervous, and David wanted to make him not nervous and that got all mixed up with what David had been about to say. So David stuttered and petted Raúl’s face and finally had to duck his head to get his thoughts straight.

“Jesus, I know you two are over. Morientes gets up in my craw but it’s not like I don’t trust you,” David said under his breath. He squeezed Raúl’s shoulders, more for something to do than for comforting the other man. “I mean, okay, I did think for a moment that it was you and Figo, but that’s just because I’m kind of crazy sometimes. It’s not like I seriously bought that.”

“I love you.” When David looked up, blinking, not thinking he’d heard right, Raúl looked like the sun. He pressed his mouth to David’s, quick but ardent. “You lunatic. I do. And there’s nothing wrong, it’s just you were so tired and I didn’t want you making yourself more tired just to spend time with me.”

“… _that’s_ why? And you couldn’t just tell me? What did you think I was going to do, tell you to fuck off?” Then David thought about it. “Actually, I probably would’ve. But you know I don’t mean that! I listen, it just takes me a—”

“I know and I’m so sorry.” Now Raúl was looking all guilty and downtrodden again.

He opened his mouth and David stuck his tongue in it to shut up the apology. Then he threaded his hands into Raúl’s hair; Raúl wrapped his arms around David’s shoulders and waist. And they fucking made out, and fuck Nuno’s sighing. If Figo could do it, David could damn well do it.

“But you were so tired,” Raúl said the next time they needed air. He leaned his forehead against David’s. “You can’t do that. I don’t care what you think, because I care about you and you’re not killing yourself to make me happy.”

“I—” David glanced up and saw the steel in Raúl’s eyes “—I wish my fucking lease wasn’t such a pain in the ass. I just need a new place.”

“So why don’t you move in with him?” Fernando’s lip curled a little when David looked at him, but then the man shook his head. “I’m not being sarcastic. I’m serious.”

Raúl unwrapped his arms from David but otherwise stayed put. “My lease is up in a month and I don’t have a new place either.”

“So you both find a new place together,” Fernando said, exasperated. “Honestly, you two do a better job of keeping yourselves apart than I ever could. And I’m not trying to do that, and I won’t. I mean it, Villa.”

After a moment, David relaxed. He pushed at his hair. “So why are you such an asshole at work?”

“I’ll stop,” Fernando said. He looked like he didn’t like saying that, which made it believable. He started to turn, then paused and looked back at David. “See you this afternoon.”

“Yeah,” David said after a moment, to Fernando’s retreating back. Then he looked at Raúl. “So…”

Raúl raised his brows, then made an ‘o’ with his mouth as he got on the same page as David. “Well, do you want to?”

“Does it mean I can come over whenever I want and screw you in the kitchen?” David said.

Grinning, Raúl nodded.

“Then fuck yes.” David reached for the other man again, then jerked his hands down and turned around. He’d seen something move out of the corner of his eye. Then he spotted another movement and swore. “I told you idiots not to do anything! Raúl, listen, I have to—”

Raúl wasn’t grinning anymore. He was amused and irritated, and he looked like he loved David just as much as he had when he had been smiling. “Okay, go kill them. I’ll see you after to call our realtors and let them know.”

“Right,” David yelled back, already running after Cazorla. He could get him first and then double back for Silva, he figured.

* * *

“It occurred to me—”

Yelping, Pablo tossed his smartphone straight up into the air and then tried to grab at it. His hand touched it but he didn’t get a good grip and it slipped down to clatter on the desk. He looked at it, then looked up at Fernando, wary.

“It occurred to me that I hadn’t heard those rumors, and while Villa’s people might not like me much, I do have friends here who would’ve let me know,” Fernando finished. “So there aren’t any rumors that we’re dating. You just wanted me up there. Or should I say Silva?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Pablo said, blank-faced.

Fernando grinned indulgently. “The funny thing is, I actually was going up because I thought it was horrible you’d gotten involved and didn’t want you to get hurt. I was going to pull out of the project.”

Pablo’s surprise confirmed Fernando’s suspicions that that hadn’t been part of the plan. Then Pablo jumped up from his chair and nearly scrambled over his desk in his hurry to get over to Fernando. “Jesus, please don’t do that. I’m really sorry, I just—Silva said—but anyway, I’m sorry and it won’t happen again. Just don’t leave, because it’ll gut the—”

“You really thought I was going to flip out over getting linked to you, and go up to complain about Villa some more?” Fernando asked.

After a moment, Pablo nodded, tight-lipped.

“Christ.” Fernando was silent for a few seconds. “You lot don’t think much of me.”

“Well, we figured you didn’t think much of me either,” Pablo said quietly. “You acted like I was just under Villa on your hit-list.”

“Because you were a shit to me and you didn’t even know the whole story,” Fernando said. He looked at the way Pablo was hanging his head. “Even though you’ve watched all my movies.”

Pablo scrubbed at his cheek, then grabbed the back of his neck. He didn’t lift his head. “Fine, I have—had a crush on you. Doesn’t mean I can’t see you’re a…look, I don’t know the whole story. But I know what I’ve seen of you, and it’s been pretty nasty.”

“True.” Fernando watched Pablo look up sharply. “So according to the schedule, I think you’re done at ten. I’ll come by at ten-fifteen. Don’t worry about cleaning up or anything—the restaurant’s pretty casual.”

“What?” Pablo said.

“Like I told you, you are hearing the whole damn story and we’re getting this straightened out,” Fernando said. “So I’m buying you dinner. And then maybe you’ll think I’m not so nasty, and I can ask you out on an actual date.”

Pablo gaped a couple times, then shook his head. He was flushing. “I’m not a rebound.”

“Nope,” Fernando agreed, just before kissing him. He felt Pablo stiffen up, then just begin to respond before he pulled away. Then he grinned at the other man. “I might not be the nicest man all the time, but I don’t do doormats. I’m not dating anyone who can’t talk back to me.”

“You’re such a smug _bastard_.” 

Pablo said that with enough heat to make Fernando think maybe he’d stepped over the line. But then Pablo threw his arm around Fernando’s head and maybe the man looked sleepy but he didn’t kiss like that. He put Fernando back into the jamb, was how he kissed.

When he dropped back, he kept his arm up so he was hanging off Fernando’s neck and looking up at Fernando. “Ten-fifteen?” he said a touch impatiently.

“Ten…” Fernando thought. Remembered Villa was busy trying to kill the others, and therefore nobody was around to spy on them. “I _am_ taking you out and explaining, because I owe you that. But I think we’ve got at least five minutes—”

That was all Pablo needed to hear. Fernando fumbled behind himself, then pulled the door shut. They didn’t need anything or anyone walking in on them.


End file.
